JAMA study on rates of suicide attempts by blacks

Posted Sep 12 2008 11:29am

There is a new study being published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association that is interesting as it is the first nationally representative study of the incident rate of suicide attempts among blacks.

According to the report: * Nearly 70,000 blacks attempt suicide annually *Nearly 1.4 Million Blacks or 4% attempt suicide at least once in their lifetime

That 4% lifetime rate stands out, as previous surveys had shown that 2.8% of blacks had attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime. At 4%, this is similar to rates among whites.

This research flies in the face of other work that has shown lifetime rates among whites was nearly twice that of blacks.

Make what you want of these statistics. I offer them here for discussion and, hopefully, to stimulate thought.